Wednesday, July 15, 2009

It’s taken some time, but Match Fit USA has finally percolated up enough outrage to take action. And you can help.

The issue is the USMNT v. Mexico World Cup qualifier. While the Spanish-language broadcast will be on Telemundo, an English version will only be available on something called mun2. To be honest, most of us were unaware what that was.

Telemundo owns both the Spanish and English rights for Mexican matches. There’s a brief rundown of how it came to pass that English-speaker will have to seek out an outlet with a footprint that reaches 1-10th of of US Americans, but the Cliff’s Notes version is:

Since 2000, Telemundo has had a contract to show Mexican matches on U.S. television. For past USA-Mexico qualifiers at Azteca, the game would end up being shown on an ESPN outlet because the U.S. Soccer Federation had a formal relationship with Telemundo. But for the past two years the USSF has worked with Telemundo's rival, Univision, which shows USA matches on its main network as well as Galavision and Telefutura.

Your help comes in the form of making your displeasure of having to find a cable outlet that mightn’t even exist on your system known to people with more influence and power.

NBC-Universal has many other outlets with much wider penetration. They might be persuaded to move the match if they were told how upset people will be with them if they miss the first time the USMNT wins at Azteca ever.

You can click on the Match Fit link (first paragraph) for a long rundown. But if you’re too lazy to click more than once, here’s a link to the online petition.

And if you feel your sphere of influence has a larger radius than your wingspan, please pass the link on to soccer-watching friends or people who simply like to irritate massive media conglomerates.

[UPDATE: We decided that a pay petition is about the lamest thing ever. The petition link above is still encouraged, but we received another email with the following message attached:

Below I have provided NBC executive email addresses and phone numbers to contact the respective individuals who do work for NBC sports. All I request is that you get the message to your readers and listeners to contact these individuals kindly and courteously and beseech that they move this extremely important match from Mun2 to a widely received channel with HD.

The confusion over the pay issue is my fault. When I set up the petition, I didn't realize there was that bullshit about donating. Just to be clear, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY TO SIGN THE PETITION.

Again, sorry about that. If I could switch it to a different petition site, I would.

Dude, you should switch it. Or add this language to the petition (rather than your current line about not having to pay): "NOTE: Clicking 'Sign Petition' will add your signature to the list. You do not have to donate to iPetition for your signature to be registered."